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A world of troubles to tackle (07 July 02:00) |
| The G8 leaders, meeting in Japan, have many challenges but few toolsTHE leaders of the G8 group of rich countries kicked off three days of annual summitry hosted by Japan in Toyako on the no... |
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The discreet charms of the international go-between (03 July 06:32) |
| A murky world of back-channels, secret meetings and close encounters for a new breed of problem-solver, both secular and (see article) religious FOR two months, Kenya, East Africa's most pro... |
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Not a sword, but peace (03 July 06:32) |
| In some cases, only the religious have the patience to be reconcilers WHEN George Bush visited Rome last year, he wanted to see everybody who mattered in world affairs: Pope Benedict, the l... |
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Bats about the Attic (26 June 06:54) |
| Fewer Greek students, but still plenty of devoted onesATROPOS is the Fate who cuts the lifeline once your time is up; she would seem to have her shears out for the study of classical (Ancien... |
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Blog standard (26 June 06:54) |
| Authoritarian governments can lock up bloggers. It is harder to outwit themWHAT do Barbra Streisand and the Tunisian president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, have in common? They both tried to bl... |
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Top of the class (26 June 06:54) |
| How to learn the right lessons from other countries? schoolsTHE children at Kulosaari primary school, in a suburb of Helsinki, seem unfazed by the stream of foreign visitors wandering throug... |
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Still knocking, as the doors close (19 June 06:18) |
| As forced migration increases, some host countries grow harder MORE and more luckless people are seeking safety and a better future in whatever country they can find; and in various ways, ma... |
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Snap and crackle goes pop (19 June 06:18) |
| Life in the old wireless yet PROPAGANDA, news, curiosity and even espionage were the fuel of short-wave radio broadcasts. Readers of a certain age may recall the thrill of hearing a crackly,... |
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A hero at home, a villain abroad (19 June 06:18) |
| New revelations on the sort of weapons expertise that was on offer to all comers have deepened the world's worries about nuclear proliferationCOMPACT in design, efficient in operation and ca... |
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When religions talk (12 June 06:39) |
| Religious leaders, scholars and business people are meeting all over the world to argue about free speech and Islamic sensibilities. How much does this achieve? DEBATES about Islam and the W... |
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Keep pretending (05 June 07:30) |
| A good retirement guide for monarchsA KING with no throne might seem as pointless as an admiral with no ships. The Nepalese royal family probably feels pretty gloomy as it packs its possessi... |
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Only a few green shoots (05 June 07:30) |
| Some good ideas, but too little cash, were among the fruits of a global gathering BOSSES of the United Nations have some discretion over what to focus on. For Kofi Annan, the previous secret... |
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Trooping the tribal colours (05 June 07:30) |
| A hardy and versatile species that can do surprisingly well in boardrooms, palaces and even diplomatic conferencesWHEN the five nations that assert sovereignty (and economic rights) in the m... |
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Spare the rod, say some (29 May 07:11) |
| In rich countries at least, parents and teachers are steadily losing the right to discipline children by force?AS PART of their daily lives, children across Europe and the world continue to ... |
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Just let them get on with it (29 May 07:11) |
| Poor people who rely on nature's gifts should be helped to help themselvesCONSERVATIONISTS and animal-welfare types please take note: trade in wildlife products, as long as it is properly ma... |
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Who will watch the watchmen? (29 May 07:11) |
| The harm that is done by people sent to do goodORGANISATIONS that send peacekeepers and aid workers to dangerous places are usually concerned about their envoys' physical safety. But an ugli... |
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Stopping the wrong sort of chain reaction (22 May 06:22) |
| The spread of civilian nuclear technologies brings the risk of nuclear proliferation?and attempts to stop it may backfireREDISCOVERING the charm of nuclear power throws up some odd results. ... |
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Thin gruel and hungry stomachs (22 May 06:22) |
| Japan plans a tiny dent in its rice stockpilesON THE outskirts of Tokyo sits a huge, grey building with concrete walls nearly one metre thick. The Fukagawa fortress, with its sophisticated s... |
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Blown away (22 May 06:22) |
| Bemoaning nasty weapons is one thing. Deciding how to ban them is anotherIT HAS worked with landmines. Can a conscience-stricken world now pull off the same trick with cluster munitions? The... |
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Correction: Humanitarian intervention (22 May 06:22) |
| Our article on intervention (?To protect sovereignty, or to protect lives??, May 17th) referred, amnesiacally, to a ?treaty of Westphalia?. The peace brokered there in 1648 was of course fra... |
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A dismal calculus (15 May 06:38) |
| Yes, peacekeeping makes sense: an accountant's viewEVERY time a conflict in some poor and chaotic place simmers down to the point where peace has a chance, rich countries with an interest in... |
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A moment of truth (15 May 06:38) |
| Make-or-break for an idea that is meant to help the poor grow and be greenFOR the system that is supposed to make it easier for people in the rich world to cut the greenhouse emissions of th... |
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To protect sovereignty, or to protect lives? (15 May 06:38) |
| The new notion of global responsibility to alleviate suffering has struggled to win acceptance?and Myanmar will not be the place where it comes of age?IT WOULD only take half an hour for the... |
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Hacks v beaks (08 May 06:10) |
| Rich people and bad laws mean tough times for free speech WHEN writing about litigious issues, big British newspapers favour phrases such as ?he strenuously denies all wrong-doing? (possible... |
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Taking the strain (08 May 06:10) |
| The political fallout from the rising cost of food has been manageable?so far WHEN Haiti's prime minister resigned last month after a week of food riots, it seemed to confirm a warning that ... |
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Streams of blood, or streams of peace (01 May 05:39) |
| Talk of thirsty armies marching to battle is surely overdone, but violence and drought can easily go togetherWHEN Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, was asked to ponder the future of the... |
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Oh what a tangled web they weave (01 May 05:39) |
| The shadowy half-life of Syria's supposedly non-existent nuclear reactor?TOTALLY undocumented and untrue?, thundered Syria this week at a meeting in Geneva of the signatories to the Nuclear ... |
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The ghosts of Mexico 1968 (24 April 06:11) |
| A massacre that was hushed up to ensure a ?successful? sporting eventA DEVELOPING country gets the Olympic games as an acknowledgment of its new, exalted status. An authoritarian government,... |
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A screaming start (24 April 06:11) |
| A new UN institution is struggling to prove that it is doing better than its unloved predecessor. Thanks to an obsession with Israel, it isn't, yetTWO years ago, the 60-year-old UN Commissio... |
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What the dead have to say (17 April 06:12) |
| The grim skills of identifying and analysing human remains are being transferred from one benighted place to anotherAT THE new ?family viewing facility? in the divided capital of Cyprus, hum... |
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Just what do they dislike, and why? (17 April 06:12) |
| Debates on Muslim grievance are generating more heat than lightTHE question of what exactly inspires ultra-militant Muslims to hate America has been a contentious one, to put it mildly, ever... |
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When trade winds smell sweet (10 April 05:57) |
| A new scramble for Africa means that an old historical relationship is taking on a fresh significanceWITH a munificence that accompanies 9% growth, India recently played host to some South A... |
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One quick shot may not be enough (10 April 05:57) |
| A breakthrough moment in awareness of a terrible scourge IT USUALLY takes a long time to draw the attention of voters and politicians in the rich world to a humanitarian or medical problem w... |
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When voters settle nothing (03 April 06:27) |
| Why more and more ballots are inconclusive?PEOPLE have given their verdict, we respect it.? When, in February, a spokesman for Pakistan's ruling party made that stoical analysis of a parliam... |
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Don't all hug him at once (03 April 06:27) |
| Americans warm to Benedict?but they won't like everything he saysSOME serious preparations have been made for this month's papal visit to the United States. For between $10 and $20, Catholic... |
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With allies like these (03 April 06:27) |
| The world's mightiest defence club fractures over plans to expand THE NATO summit in Bucharest was meant to be a celebration of France's full return to the fold and a show of long-term commi... |
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Food for thought (27 March 07:15) |
| Soaring prices for products like rice (see article) and wheat are causing headaches for aid agencies and politicians FOR years, anti-poverty campaigners railed against low commodity prices, ... |
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Needed: a new revolution (27 March 07:15) |
| How bad policies crimp exportersTHE soaring price of rice and dwindling stockpiles of Asia's basic food are causing anxiety across the region. In particular the Philippines, a big, hungry co... |
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Just how low can you go? (27 March 07:15) |
| Numbers shrink and attention wandersSCARCITY usually drives up value, but not in the nuclear-bomb business. At the height of the cold war, with tens of thousands of missiles on hair-trigger ... |
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Racing to hug those trees (27 March 07:15) |
| As UN efforts to save the forests grind on, a range of alternatives is on offerNEXT week the United Nations will convene yet another meeting to debate a successor to the Kyoto protocol, its ... |
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Dirty linen (19 March 07:10) |
| Can a big lender fight sleaze?DENOUNCING sleaze and kickbacks has long been fashionable among the bosses of the World Bank. Back in 1996, James Wolfensohn piously vowed to root out the ?canc... |
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Let's talk about figures (19 March 07:10) |
| The eternal language of numbers is reborn as a form of communication that people all over the world can use?and, increasingly, must use BRILLIANCE with numbers is a curious thing. Paul Erdos... |
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Rolling up the culprits (13 March 06:43) |
| America's legal authorities (but not many others) are still clearing debris from the UN programme that an ingenious Saddam Hussein turned to his own advantage"THE biggest financial scandal e... |
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Suited and booted (13 March 06:43) |
| A notorious arms dealer is arrested in Thailand. Why?A FORMER Soviet military-intelligence officer, stranded in Africa by the collapse of his country, turns to gun-running and builds a lucra... |
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Feel safer now? (06 March 06:25) |
| Most anti-terrorist spending is wasteful, claims a new studyAFTER September 11th 2001, most countries beefed up security at airports and other vulnerable places. Tough-looking immigration of... |
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A farm boy on the world stage (06 March 06:25) |
| A "prophet" who finds honour, and some suspicion, in his own country PIOUS people in eastern Turkey, where Fethullah Gulen was born, are eager to praise him. Before hearing the preacher's wo... |
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Leaks and lawsuits (06 March 06:25) |
| Lawyers and governments battle over free speech on the internet BEFORE they were leaked onto the internet, the activities in the Cayman Islands of Bank Julius Baer, and how far they may or m... |
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How far they have travelled (06 March 06:25) |
| A Turkish-based movement, which sounds more reasonable than most of its rivals, is vying to be recognised as the world's leading Muslim network IT IS a long way from the Anatolian plains to ... |
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Why not just blow your whistle? (28 February 06:59) |
| Its latest Iran report highlights the problems of the UN's atomic watchdogSO IS Iran trying to build the bomb or not? Iran says it is not. Israel says it is. America's intelligence people sa... |
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A hazardous comparison (28 February 06:59) |
| Americans like the idea (though not always the reality) of risk more than comfortable Europeans do. To Russians, both lots seem hyper-cautious wimpsANYBODY who dabbles in transatlantic affai... |
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